The invention relates to a coach body construction for rail vehicles which comprise an upper structure having extruded profiles, which are connected detachably to one other by mechanical means and are made of an aluminum alloy, and a lower structure.
It is known and customary to design the lower structure of a coach body for rail vehicles as a welded steel construction having longitudinal and transverse supports and, by means of screw connections, to attach thereto an upper structure made of posts, upper flanges and, if need be, roof arches. Although the lower structure made of a welded steel construction is self-supporting per se, a part of the stability of the coach body construction can be taken over by a rigid upper construction. A coach body construction of this type for road and rail vehicles is disclosed, for example, in European Patent 0,031,306.
European Patent 0,186,625 describes a chassis for road vehicles, in particular made of an aluminum alloy, having longitudinal supports and transverse supports passing through said longitudinal supports, and an outer frame to receive floor planks extending in the longitudinal direction. The profiles are screwed to one another by means of corner pieces. The chassis must be designed to be self-supporting in itself, otherwise it could not be used as a loading ramp of road vehicles. However, this solution, conceived for a chassis for road vehicles cannot be transferred to rail vehicle construction because, in that case, different conditions prevail and there are different requirements.